What goes around…

Every now and again you have a moment of pure sweet justice and I am undergoing a growing sense of such a moment at this time. I joined the office I work in currently on a transfer from another department whilst heavily pregnant. I had to work hard to establish myself in a short time as I knew I was due to go on maternity leave soon; running around, making time to get to know people, trying to appear as professional and capable as I could whilst looking like a beached whale in an abaya and being incredibly uncomfortable.

On return from leave I found that I had been moved from my managerial position to a lesser position (on the same pay so I could not appeal), at the same time the senior manager was new and was on holiday. After a few weeks of feeling neglected, ignored, unchallenged and totally bored I started job-hunting manically.

At the same time this office is run by a clique of arrogant, self-obsessed, prejudiced, nepotists. These people all socialise together (down the pub natch) and have all gotten to where they are by helping each other up the ladder. Rules have been bent and changed for them to progress and in the process, people who are capable, intelligent and experienced have not been given a chance to apply for promotions and get involved in projects or high-profile work.

Recently there have been some big changes in the office due to changes in legislation relating to the work we do. Because the “clique” doesn’t know the work (and in many cases were too thick to be doing the job in the first place) they didn’t see the change in workload coming and could not prepare effectively to deal with it, so now they are up the creek without a paddle. Because morale here is so low and people have always felt intimidated by this bunch, there isn’t exactly a stampede of people rushing forward to help and those that are being roped in are working half-heartedly. Oh – and then they realised that the section causing all the problems has been cooking the figures for the work stats being handed in every week and they are sitting on TONS of work.

As this week has gone by it has been hilarious to watch the bunch of gorillas and gorilless’s marching up and down the office looking worried, and then panicked. Piles of paper appearing all around them and piles of files appearing in the office of on our very own version of David Brent (only my colleague assures me David Brent is a lot nicer). Clients are calling up getting more and more furious as no-one can help them and the section that caused the problem is refusing to answer phones. This is just the beginning. Also the work they are getting is from the office I moved here from last year. So I know how to do it. I might let them know this at some point…I might not. If I do it will be just before I hand my notice in. Just waiting for my letter of confirmation to come from my new employers (great time for a four-day postal strike!).